DM#11: Blindness in part is happened to Israel

Doctrine of the Mysteries #11

Blindness in part is happened to Israel 

Paul’s 13-epistles constitute the ‘mystery doctrine’. It is Paul himself that describes his inspired writings as mysteries,

1Cor 4:1  Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Eph 3:3  How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,

He calls his writings mysteries, not because they were mysterious or enigmatic, but because they were a secret that was never revealed before. Paul tells us that what he made known, “was kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest”, Rom 16:25-26. Paul uses the words, “but now”, many times in his epistles, as it indicates that things were a certain way before, but now, by God’s design, they were replaced by a new set of doctrinal principles, and these principles were never prophesied and made known in the prophetic scriptures.

Accounting for the sequential order of Paul’s epistles in the Bible, the very first mystery that we encounter, is the blinding of Israel, as quoted below,

Rom 11:25  For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

According to prophecy, God’s light and salvation would come to the Gentile nations via the rise and pre-eminence of Israel. However, Paul writes that it is by the blinding of Israel that Gentiles will be saved. This was a mystery, as the prophetic scriptures never revealed this. The blinding of Israel is also in reference to a temporary suspension of the prophetic program. God stopped his dealings with Israel, and the entire administrative functionality of this program was placed on hold, but will be reinitialized at the beginning of the 7-year Tribulation, which resumes the prophetic program.

An interesting parallel event

There is an interesting parallel event in Acts 13 that provides substance to the blinding of Israel. At the very beginning of Paul's first missionary journey, a Jew called Barjesus opposed Paul’s ministry to a Gentile. This leads to God blinding Barjesus for a season. It is hard to miss the irony and parallel in this event as projected to the blinding of the entire nation of Israel for the sake of Gentile salvation. Below is the passage that describes this event,

Act 13:6-11  And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus:  7  Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God.  8  But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.  9  Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him,  10  And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?  11  And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.

There are many more mysteries that Paul reveals in his epistles. All these mysteries add to the doctrine that we as grace believers are to learn and apply in our lives today. It is this doctrine that we need to rightly divide from the prophecy program. If one does not keep the two programs separated, but rather sees everything in scripture as one doctrine, it will cause terrible confusion and contradiction, which is unfortunately what we predominantly see in the denominational church system today. Prophecy and mystery are two different programs which sequentially contribute to the greater redemption plan of God for heaven and earth. Keep them separate, and the Bible is easily and clearly understood.